Thursday, June 12, 2008

Spring prayer letter

Dear friends,I’m sorry we haven’t written. To keep up with writing quarterly letters, we should have done this at the end of April. However, at the end of April we were very busy. On May 1 we left for Ukraine! We’ve been here for over a month now. Most of that time we have been working on getting settled, but in the process, we’ve been getting to know people and find our place.

I’ll go back a little . . .We left Russia in February, and spent two weeks with my parents in Florida. After that we went to North Carolina for two weeks with Will’s parents in Charlotte and then almost two months at a home for missionaries near Greensboro. It was wonderful to see family and friends! God provided everything we needed and wanted, including a car to use and a place to stay. We thank all of you who allowed Him to bless us through you.

Our first few weeks in Ukraine we stayed with the Sobie family in the village of Balki while we searched for an apartment. The Lord provided a good place for us right in the center of Dneprorudnoe, but it has taken (is taking!) a lot of time and effort to make it our home. Dneprorudnoe is a very small mining town (20,000) in the Zaporozhya region, just south of the huge Kakhovskoe Reservoir. There is a big church here, and we’ve slowly been getting to know people and take part there. They are without an official pastor, although there is a man who unofficially fills that role. So far, Will has preached four times and sings at almost every church service. He is going to be working with the youth, singing in the choir, and helping work on the church building, since it is not all the way finished. Soon we’ll also be able to help with a children’s camp at church.

In many ways, we’re finding that this part of Ukraine is at least similar to central Russia. Everyone speaks Russian in this region. We do hear Ukrainian in some village settings, and it’s the official language for documents and such. I hope to get started on studying some Ukrainian soon; even though everyone says we don’t need to learn it . . . I want to!

Our children are adjusting very quickly and easily here. They’re already making friends in our new neighborhood and church. Jaan keeps up with his constant questions for us, and lately many of them have had to do with trying to understand life and death, salvation and Jesus’ death for us. Raia will be three in a few days, and she’s very excited about that. Asya is actively trying to keep up with her big brother and sister; she crawls everywhere and has recently started pulling up.

Prayer requests:(Please be sure to read the attached quote about prayer.)1. PRAISE the Lord for getting us to Ukraine!2. Getting settled here is a long process: making a new home for ourselves; adjusting mentally and emotionally to being in Ukraine, not Russia; finding our place and ministry in the church, and more.3. Documents, registration, getting our belongings from Russia to here: “visa stuff” is somewhat simpler here, but it’s new and different to us, and it is taking time and effort.4. Camp! We don’t know any details yet, but plans are in the works. Also, Will’s sister, Anna, will be here soon, and she will probably be able to help with camp. Praise for that, and pray for her travels.

Thank you for praying! For those of you who stay in touch with us through internet and email, I hope to be caught up in that world soon. We would love to hear from you, to know how you’re doing and how we can pray for you.Love and prayers,Phyllis (and Will, Jaan, Raia and Asya) Hunsucker

Our new mailing address is to the right. Our email address and web site are still the same: mayakovsky@willphyl.com and http://www.willphyl.com.

From Amy Carmichael’s first book, her letters home from Japan, even before India: “Your prayers are almost everything to us. Often the mails are delayed, and we may be weeks letterless, as in many another land they are months; but prayers come via heaven, and God forwards the answers straight on to us. [Note: Mail isn’t delayed these days, but we haven’t had email for quite a while now.] We know when they reach us, too, and look up and ask Him to thank you. I wish I could make the reality of this vivid to you. A little sketch in outline may give you a glimpse into things as they really are at times. “In a far-way land a sister of yours wakens one morning feeling dull. Perhaps she has been to a late meeting the night before [or her children kept her up ☺], and is tired, and the devil has rather mean way of teasing tired people. Perhaps she has got discouraged because of the way; perhaps she is very homesick. Suddenly is flashed to her a sweet love-note from the Lord, who knoweth our frame—a scrap of psalm or hymn, a promise long known, now going to be fulfilled. His felt presence, a nearness never known in less lonely days, soothes and thrills her, and the consciousness comes, ‘Some one is praying for me.’ She finds herself breaking into ‘Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus our blessed Redeemer,’ ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory to the Lamb!’ The cup runs over again, Himself its overflowing portion. All the day long that dear home-prayer is with her, and she knows it.“ . . . Temptation and testings come. Insidious little things, scarcely recognisable at first, ‘subtle wiles’ indeed. The climate is trying. Home friends and ways are missed. Trifles have a power to fret and chafe. Perhaps study or service try to press in and hinder quiet with Him who says, ‘Be still and know.’ It is terribly possible to get out of touch. She feels it, and shrinks in shame and pain from the very thought, 'Oh, what if it should be so!’ Then she learns the value of home-prayers as never before, knows with a quite curious certainty that even now, in the moment of need, one of the Lord’s remembrancers is reminding Him of her, knows too that He Himself has prayed for her that her faith fail not. And such reassurance comes, such rest!“Dear friends, will you not send us ever so many prayer telegrams? Pray for us whenever you think of us, turning thought into prayer, and know that not one ‘ever miscarries. Nor will the answer come too late.’”